Clothes for women having cups formed of a composite fiber structure for covering breasts have been in widespread use, such as an underwear, e.g., a brassiere, a long-line brassiere, a bodysuit, a three-in-one, a brateddy, a bracamisole, a braslip and a bustier, and an outerwear, e.g., a leotard, a swimsuit, an evening dress and a bustier type wear. As the composite fiber structure, the following products have been produced and brought to market.
As the most popular product, a composite fiber structure having elasticity formed of polyurethane has been well known. The composite fiber structure is produced as a curved composite fiber structure having an integral structure through such steps as slicing and machining from a large urethane block. However, the composite fiber structure has problems inherent to urethane, such as yellowing, deterioration in light resistance, and durability to dry cleaning. It furthermore has a problem in stuffy feeling due to absence in air permeability. Among these problems, the problem of yellowing is a serious one, and upon using a urethane cup, it is necessary in use that the urethane cup is covered with cloth in layers to hide the yellowing from the exterior.
In recent years, various kinds of clothing and fibers are recovered and recycled. In general, general clothing containing various kinds of materials is often recycled for use as industrial rags and work gloves. However, a cup formed mainly of a urethane pad cannot be recycled and should be burnt out or landfilled. The burnout process brings about a problem of generation of a toxic gas, such as cyan gas. The landfill process brings about a problem in oppressing industrial waste disposal plants. These processes are harmful to the global environment.
It has been known that another composite fiber structure for cups is produced by accumulating plural thin nonwoven cloth sheets to 4 to 8 layers to form a curved shape, and adhering the sheets with an adhesive and simultaneously molding with heat, and still another one is produced by accumulating card webs through mixing binder fibers with cotton, and melting the binder fibers for hot-adhering upon molding with heat. However, these composite fiber structures suffer large shape change upon washing to provide a problem in shape maintenance property.
Patent Documents 1 and 2 propose to obtain a composite fiber structure for cups by using an elastic fiber structure containing nonelastic polyester crimped short fibers as a matrix having dispersed and mixed therein elastic conjugate fibers containing a thermoplastic elastomer exposed on the surface of the fibers. However, the composite fiber structure is still insufficient in softness and elasticity, and proposal of such a composite fiber structure is being demanded that is further improved in softness and elasticity.
Moreover, as a composite fiber structure improved in cushioning property, such a structure is proposed that is obtained by adhering a cloth to a fiber structure containing fibers oriented in the thickness direction (for example, in Patent Document 3), but it is inferior in appearance due to an irregular surface.
As a fiber structure containing fibers oriented in the thickness direction, a structure obtained by slicing the surface to form a cut surface (for example, in Patent Document 4).
[Patent Document 1] JP-A-5-195397
[Patent Document 2] International Publication 03/011063
[Patent Document 3] JP-A-8-318066
[Patent Document 4] JP-A-5-263345